Everybody, guess what? On the 16th, Emmy turned one-and-a-half, and you know what? I didn’t even manage a post to commemorate it! This past week has been fairly busy and hectic although not much new has happened besides Emmy’s Meme and Papa Steve going out of town for a few days.

This past weekend, Colleen and Steve had Kayleigh’s cousin, Tiff’s, wedding reception back in good old Portland. Yes, Portland. So we were there for roughly two years and we barely had visitors, but now that we’re gone, people can finally make it out to the PNW for a visit ._.

Anyways, about last Wednesday… considering I can’t really remember anything too big going on means it must not have been too significant. I do remember telling Emmy that she was old and that she needed to slow down, though, so there must have been something going on that day. Oh well.

I just wanted to let you all know about how fast this little girl is growing up because a lot of you have been following her little journey for a few months now on the blog and it’s all just going so fast. When I began this blog in January, the little girl was only 1 year, 1.5-months-old. Crazy isn’t it? She’s literally changing from a baby to a little girl right before my very eyes and I’m about ready to beg whatever Gods that I need to to get her to slow down a bit!

She’s going to be two before we know it and time is just going to continue to move, continue to fly by and just as we watched our tiny baby turn into a little girl, before we know it our little girl is going to be a real-life child and then a bigger child, teenager, then adult, and then… I’m getting way ahead of myself.

She’s growing too fast is all I really wanted to say. I also wanted to say thank you to everyone who continues to look at and read the blog; you are all very appreciated, I promise.

Josh and I are sonot those people. Which is strange since both of the women that raised us are hardcore work-outters who love to be healthy and fit.

Recently I’ve been trying to work out every day during the week while Emerson takes her afternoon nap.

These aren’t long work out sessions, by any means. I also have no equipment, weights or otherwise. Meaning these also are not super difficult workouts.

I find them online, usually on YouTube and I do try to spend 10-20 minutes focusing on myself even though I honestly hate working out and I honestly don’t see the point when I generally am in pretty good shape thanks to my good genes (thanks, mama).

Still, I’m trying to take on some new challenges to help myself and my days.

Being a stay at home mom is the most draining job I think there might be on Earth and I think it’s important I try to focus on myself for those 10-20 minutes a day.

When I was working, life was so much easier and I felt much more balanced and much happier. Now things are difficult and far from easy and there are no once-in-a-while pick me ups… Like the Jamba Juice I used to walk across NW Portland from work to the mall to get on my breaks.

What challenges are you giving yourself and facing lately?

I know I need more challenges and I’m thinking of starting a list. They say it takes only a few weeks to form a new habit… Leave a comment with your suggestions!

Alrighty then—now that we established what happened with the whole birth part of the story and I’ve talked about some more recent stuff… we can move forward, or onward you might say, in the past, but still onward… in the story, and can now discuss our Portland/Vancouver life a little bit.

I think I mentioned earlier that we were living in a small city called Vancouver, Washington at the time of Emmy’s birth; she was born in Portland, though, and thank the Lord for that. Not that Vancouver is a bad place or anything, but there are definitely some crazies up there and who even knows that there’s a Vancouver in Washington. Anyways, Emmy is Portland-born and she lived there (or near) for the first eight-or-so months of her life.

Now, I’m just going to give you the first 3/4 year of her life in a short, small, little nutshell. When our tubular little tyke was born, it was right in the heart of the rainy season, which worked for the FIRST few months of her life because she was fairly immobile and we weren’t really supposed to take her outside anyway. The more time moved forward and the bigger she grew though, the more we longed to get away from our dreary little apartment on the bottom floor in the small, hardly-known town that is America’s Vancouver.

I know that many of you aren’t going to care much about this, but not too long ago my twenty-seventh birthday came rolling by, and guess what? Well, it was the first time that we (Kayleigh and I) got to spend any time without Emmy in months! Well, I guess I get to go to work and school, but it’s the first time she’s really been without either of us for more than, like, an hour in the recent past. Not that I have anything against spending time with her or anything.

Any of you who are parents will understand how big a deal it is to get a night away from your children, and I gotta tell you, we enjoyed it.

The last time we got a night together, just us, was in September. We had just moved to Vegas and had gone down to Arizona to see my mom, and while we were there we went out to see IT. That was like four-and-a-half or five months ago! So it was time, well-deserved even, and we took advantage of the one chance we had to spend some real, quality time together.

After I got home from work, we all hung out and spent a while playing as a family, and tried to cram in all the time we could get together before we had to leave our little girl behind. When you never spend really any amount of time away from your kids, it can be hard to do so, even when it’s for less than a handful of hours! Such is the case for Kayleigh at least! She has the hardest time leaving Emmy anywhere, with anyone; it’s kinda cute. Anyways, we played and played with Emmy, gave her snacks, and basically just made sure she wasn’t going to think that we had abandoned her, or didn’t love her anymore, or something. Kids are weird, and think all kinds of weird things for all kinds of reasons, okay?

Let me begin by telling you that babies aren’t always easy—as if that’s not something you’ve been told forever—and I’m here to let you know about something that rips out my heart, much like Lloyd Christmas does to the chef in Dumb and Dumber.

Emmy was born active and stubborn, strong-willed and, to put it lightly, strong in the physical sense, too. She’s been go, go, go and always on the move from the second she wakes up until the moment she goes down every night. She doesn’t quit is what I’m getting at; she’s constantly in motion—doing, exploring, learning. While this all may sound great, fine-and-dandy even, there are days when all I want to do is rip my fuckin’ hair out!